There was plenty of uncertainty swirling today regarding veteran running back Jamal Lewis. Not present at practice, nor the locker room media portion that followed, The Plain Dealer speculated that Lewis’ season could be over. Not long thereafter, WTAM/AM1100 confirmed that Lewis in fact will be placed on the Injured Reserve ending his season and perhaps his career.
With three running backs (Lewis, Jerome Harrison and practice squad add-on Chris Jennings) on the Browns roster, many fans found it odd that the team would be trying out the NFL-turned-UFL running back DeDe Dorsey. Given the uncertainty regarding the use of Harrison, this was understandable. But with this news regarding Lewis, we apparently have our answer.
Lewis had been a major talking point through the 2009 season. With the Browns drafting his (then thought) heir apparent in James Davis, it was obvi0us that Lewis was not exactly in the future plans for Eric Mangini. Then about a month into the season, Lewis – emotional off of yet another defeat – claimed that he was retiring at the end of the season.
“It is very hard,” he said. “Very. I think this is my last year. I think this is it. Honestly, the way it looks, you know, I had a good run.”
Thinking things would have gotten better over the bye week, we could not have been more wrong. A few days later, Lewis went on attack mode, claiming that Mangini was working players too hard. This lead to fatigue and poor play, especially late in games.
Speculation ran wild that Lewis could be moving his chess pieces in line with former teammates Braylon Edwards and Kellen Winslow. A veteran player in a rebuilding situation, Lewis’ best years were behind him and he was obviously unhappy with every facet of this season.
The team would later rally around Lewis as alleged chants of “J-Lew” were popular amongst the Browns locker room. Unlike the abovementioned, Lewis reportedly had a lot of respect in the locker room and was a vocal leader inside the confines of Berea. A few day’s following the chants, Craig penned that the Browns would be wise to move on without Lewis – and it appears that they will now be forced to do such.
And how are the Browns handling these injuries now?
“It is definitely a challenge,” said linebacker David Bowens. ”One thing I told the guys this morning is that we are going to have to put 11 out there on Sunday.” He went on to say, ”We are going to expect everyone to do their job no matter what position they are playing, no matter what name is on the back of your jersey. It is going to be time to play ball, take heed to the game plan so that when we go out on Sunday we are all playing fast.”
Defensive back Eric Wright also had his two cents. ”It’s definitely difficult when guys go down, but that’s the name of the game. It’s a long season,” he said. “You never want it to happen but at some point guys are going to get injured. We’ve had a lot, so a lot of guys are going to have to step up and full some shoes.”
As of this post, there is no mention of what “injury” Lewis has. Reports mention that the team will be forced to put him on the injury list for this week’s game, then making it more clear – at least as clear as NFL injury lists can be. Updated reports do hint that Lewis has a concussion, and was seeing a specialist this afternoon. The Plain Dealer speculates that Lewis will address the situation later this week.
Do not be surprised to see similar news regarding free safety Brodney Pool. With the Browns going nowhere for the rest of the 2009 season, a fourth or fifth career concussion is not worth suiting up for the final slate of games.
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(Image via Flickr)
Author: Scott
Scott is a co-founder/editor of Waiting For Next Year who resides in Cleveland, Ohio. Feel free to follow him on Twitter or email him at scott@waitingfornextyear.com.Scott has written 2013 articles for Waiting for Next Year.
I think it’s time to reinstate TD’s moratorium on the Browns
I wonder what Lee Suggs is doing these days.
Is this the culture that Mangini and Lerner are trying to build? It really seems like Mangini goes around spouting all that coach speak crap about culture and foundation and Lerner ate it up. These words have no meaning really, but they sound really good.
“I wonder what Lee Suggs is doing these days.”
Laughing.
Prepare to laugh even more
Lee Suggs currently is serving as the QB’s coach at Oberlin
@Joe: Nice. I’m all for putting out an APB for Jamel White myself…
My biggest fear is that because of all the injuries, ownership will say that Mangini hasn’t gotten a fair shake. This would make me even more mad, of course, because as we’ve all seen, injuries have nothing to do with the poor performance of this team…a lack of talent and quality gameplanning trump any injury complaint in this case. But it does make me nervous.
I just talked to Terry Kirby and he went to get his cleats.
Or what about Willy Greenbacks
Really feel sorry for Brodney Pool. He is a good guy in addition to a solid pro. I hope he retires and spares his brain of any more trauma. Sorry to see Jamal go out in such an inglorious manner as well.
I feel bad for him. The more pressing question is who will BQ do bicep curls with?
J-Lewis = Raven for life
Wow, with all the guys we lost this week, Sunday’s final score could get really gruesome.
Thus continues the annual Browns tradition of packing players on IR as another awful season nears its merciful conclusion. This gives Mangini/FO an excuse to say “we led the league in players on IR, if not for that we would have been better”.
Note, this tradition has also applied to the Tribe in recent years.
**BROWNS NEWS FLASH**
Brian Daboll changes play book from:
1. Jamal Lewis up the middle
2. Jamal Lewis up the middle
3. ????
4. Punt
to
1. ????
2. ????
3. ????
4. Punt
1. Quarterback Sneak
2. ????
3. ????
4. Punt
5. Profit
Bernie Quasar FTW!
jewpants- right on. I dont care about Jamal because he doesnt care about the browns. I think thi is good for the browns because there is no way they let him on the field now. Give me some more Harrison, who ran for 120 yards against the bengals when Lewis was out.
I wouldn’t want to be on the IR. It’s more painful watching this team play than it would be to play through any “injury” they might have.
I believe this will lead to a lot more qb sneaks on 1st down. A lot.
Jamal Lewis doesn’t care about the Browns’ people.
Paging Ben Gay!
I disagree on the “Jamal doesn’t care about the Browns” thing. He would have cared if we weren’t a joke of a franchise. Frankly, I question the sanity of anyone who still deeply cares about this joke of a team/franchise/coach/owner.
Go ahead and say I’m “not a real fan,” but a decade+ of incompetence doesn’t inspire confidence and devotion.
our prayers were answered!
[...] Browns come into today’s game having lost Shaun Rogers, Jamal Lewis, and Brodney Pool this past week to injuries. This alone makes the Browns roster look a little thin, as two of the [...]